GUEST COLUMNIST: Alabama lawmakers want more control over fishing

Sunday

May 12, 2013 at 12:01 AM

Fisheries management means different things to different people. Some groups believe you should shut down parts of the ocean to all fishing and call it “management.” The push for marine protected areas and no fishing zones is a cornerstone of fisheries management for some environmental groups.

By Ted Venker

Fisheries management means different things to different people. Some groups believe you should shut down parts of the ocean to all fishing and call it “management.” The push for marine protected areas and no fishing zones is a cornerstone of fisheries management for some environmental groups. On the other end of the scale, commercial fisheries seek management for “yield” — to catch as many fish as possible as efficiently as possible, to maximize profit from the sale of whatever species they pursue. It is the same as a timber company seeking “yield” in a high-yield pine forest as opposed to a much slower growing oak or hickory forest. Managing fisheries for yield walks a fine line, as the goal is to remove as many fish as possible without tipping the stock into crisis.In the middle of those two extremes are recreational fisheries, which are dynamic in nature and prosecuted by millions of individuals with diverse goals. Some try to catch fish for food, some like to catch and release fish, some fish to enjoy the outdoors. Recreational fisheries are best managed for “expectation” as opposed to yield.Anglers need to believe they will have the opportunity to encounter fish, with the hopes they may catch some, possibly including some large enough to take home, and perhaps even a trophy-sized fish or two. Instead of yield, access, abundance and age structure are key elements to recreational fisheries.Commercial and recreational fisheries are fundamentally different activities, and require different management approaches, yet problems continue to arise because the National Marine Fisheries Service continues to unnecessarily use the same management strategies for both.Commercial harvest is usually measured in real-time, by weighing the fish landed, so “pounds” are the appropriate currency. On the other hand, the recreational harvest is estimated no sooner than 45 days after the catch occurred, in numbers of fish. That estimated number is then multiplied by another estimate of weight to estimate pounds landed. Managers are using the weakest link in the management data to measure and manage recreational fisheries — pounds of fish landed.And it is unnecessary.The Magnuson Stevens Act requires that managers must “establish a mechanism for specifying annual catch limits in the plan (including a multiyear plan), implementing regulations, or annual specifications, at a level such that overfishing does not occur in the fishery, including measures to ensure accountability.”Nowhere in that critical language does the term “pounds” occur. It makes much more sense to manage recreational fisheries against a fishing mortality rate than a hard quota, which is precisely how Atlantic striped bass are managed by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission — one of the key fishery management success stories. Using the same management tools to regulate two fundamentally different approaches to prosecuting a fishery, when most of the current management science and tools are geared towards managing commercial harvest, is a documented recipe for failure with respect to managing the recreational fishery. Federal managers may recognize that fact, but they have so far refused to act on it. Red snapper is a prime example of the result. This fishery has been under federal management for roughly three decades and faced stark criticism almost every step of the way. It culminated in 2013 with the announcement of a 27-day recreational season contrasted against a tremendously rebuilding fishery. After more than 360 months of debate, lawsuits, acrimony, mistakes and miscalculations, recreational anglers will have less than a single month to fish for one of the most popular and abundant offshore fish in the Gulf this summer.And that result is not sitting well with the Gulf Coast states.A flurry of political action over the past few weeks has made it clear that the states have had enough of watching the federal government cause havoc with their coastal economies. Rep. Jo Bonner of Alabama has unveiled an innovative plan to remove federal oversight of waters less than 20 fathoms and hand it over to the states to manage independently. The governors of four Gulf states (Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Florida) have sent a letter to Congressional leadership seeking state control over red snapper out to 200 miles through the Gulf States Marine Fisheries Commission. At the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council, a version of regional management was hammered out primarily by the Gulf States fisheries directors to provide some flexibility to the states to decide how and when they want to fish for red snapper although still within parameters still set by the Council. All of these efforts have one goal in mind — greater state management of Gulf fisheries. When it comes to recreational fisheries, most states have figured out there is far more to managing fish than simply counting and weighing every carcass. You never hear anyone ask what the annual catch limit is for whitetailed deer or largemouth bass. There are very few, if any, hard catch limits in state fisheries and wildlife management. The states understand recreational fishing and hunting and manage those species appropriately.The Coastal Conservation Association has always advocated managing recreational fisheries at the lowest practical level of government, ideally at the state level. We are working with Rep. Bonner, the Gulf governors and other elected officials to find the best path to more state-based fishery management.A management shift to the states is a significant undertaking, but the choice is clear. The federal government has had decades to show what it can do, and now it is time to give the states the opportunity to do a better job.

Ted Venker is the Conservation Director for the Coastal Conservation Association and the editor of the association’s TIDE magazine.